If you're in to microphotography of insects and insect parts, you have to check out the work of Charles Krebs. The video below is a news story from Seattle that gives a good amount of information on his technique. I like the fact that he uses what he has and improvises to get some beautiful photos of insects. Go to his web site to see many wonderful photos. Thanks to The Strobist for pointing out this one.
Yesterday I finally made another trip over to visit Michele's garden. There is still a lot going on this time of year. Just like last year, the remaining bees and butterflies are visiting the sedum blossoms and other flowers in her garden to get the last bits of nectar for the season. I got a relatively early start and it was fairly cool overnight. I think that made the bees a little lethargic and that helped me get set up for photos.
There were several different species roaming over the plants. I focussed on the larger bees as they were moving more slowly. This bee (maybe a carpenter bee?) was the same species I saw last year. The green pattern in the eyes and the yellow mark on the front of the head is pretty distinctive.
Here is a close-up of the head. I was using a bare flash for fill so you can see some glare on the eyes. Reflected light next time.
Below is another type of bee I saw. In this photo you can see the additional 3 eyes on the forehead. I used a fill flash on this macro as the plant was in partial shade. Click here to see a larger version of the photo below. I think this is my favorite of the bee macros.
Here is a side view of the same bee.
You can see a bunch of bee photos in the Flickr set here.
The cicadas are covering the trees and flying around all over the place looking for a partner and laying eggs. The photo to the right shows them in the shade of a tree outside our place. Here is another shot near our neighbor's door.
If you don't have cicadas in your area and you're not familiar with them, you can read more about cicadas here. I found this page with some recordings of cicada sounds. It's hard to appreciate what a chorus of hundreds of them sound like. I think Dianne pegged it when she said it sounds like the Martian noise in the original War of The Worlds film. I found this segment from the film on YouTube. Listen to the sound about 2:30 in to the clip. I'm sure that was their inspiration.
I tried taking some macros of the critters. They are about an inch long, so it's hard to get all of them in focus in an interesting way. The shot below was the best of my close-ups. This one was taking a break from climbing up the tree trunk and just hanging out in the sun.
When Dianne and I were walking to the Blue Ash Memorial Day parade, Dianne noticed several cicadas and their exoskeletons on trees near the Hunt Road House. There wasn't any noise, so they must have recently emerged from the ground and started their climb up the tree. The first photo below shows one that had just shed the exoskeleton and was moving its wings in the sunshine. The second shot shows one trying to emerge. Actually, it was hard to tell if it was stuck or dead, but it was interesting to see how the back splits and they come out. If you want to brush up on your cicada anatomy, I found this site pretty interesting.
Saw these large ants tending to these brown patches on these broad leaves. OK...does that sentence give any useful information? No...except to a biologist I'm sure it very clearly points out I know nothing about plants or ants. I had an Uncle Milton ant farm when I was a kid, but I never saw anything like this. Can anyone shed some light on this one?
There are several good ant identification sites on the web. A few examples are Ant Web, Bug Guide (useful for more than just ants), and these photos from the MS State site. I learned a little about ants. The most important thing I learned is there are a heck of a lot of ant species out there! From the lack of ocelli, the 12 segmented antenna, the smooth arched back, and the single segment pointed me to some type of Camponotus -- a carpenter ant. However, from descriptions it doesn't make sense that I'd see them tending to stuff on the top of broad plant leaves. And what are they working on? They were continuously touching one and then the next with their antenna. I'm hoping some myrmecologist will leave a comment.
One of the many things I've learned while taking macro photos in Michele and John's garden is that I don't know much about insect and plant names. One site I've found helpful for butterfly identification is the Butterflies and Moths of North America site. I like that the site has a map search option that lists species found in a given county. However, it's sometimes hard to get a positive identification because of the limited number of photos. I just got info from one of the site administrators on how to submit photos. I plan to submit some photos like the one of this Skipper (of some type) below that was tasting the sedum blossoms. There is another shot of the Skipper here.
This bee was so large, the stalks of the coleus were bending under its weight. The light was a little flat through a thin cloud layer, but I like this photo anyway. I also got a couple shots of a Silver-Spotted Skipper on the same plant that you can see here and here. I like the second Skipper photo with the red leaves in the background.
Last week I didn't only see bees on the sedums. They were loaded with butterflies as well. The top photo below shows a few Skippers -- I think the two in front are Fiery Skippers. Not sure about the one in the background. The bottom photo is a Painted Lady. I love the eye.
The Sedum blossoms were wide open at Michele and John's place last week. The plants were loaded with bees and butterflies! Seeing several bee species side by side made it much easier for an insect newbie like me to pick out differences. This guy was on the big side and the green eyes with the distinctive dot pattern really made it stand out from the others. I didn't have bright sun that day, but I thought this image still turned out OK. See other photos of this bee in the garden photoset on Flickr. I also added some images of a clematis.
Update on 9/11: after a bit of looking on the web, I think this is a carpenter bee. Can anyone confirm that? This view showing the shiny black abdomen is one clue and I did see some other images on the web showing this type of eye -- but others not. Maybe a species difference? Still not sure why the compound eye exhibits this dot pattern. Is it the angle the light is entering/reflecting off the various cones?
Continuing with the garden photo posts, here is a selection of bee and wasp photos I took while looking around. They were more interested in the nectar than they were in me. Lots of activity! Click on an image to see a larger view or go to the Flickr set here.
As Yogi Berra said, you can observe a lot by watching.
On Saturday morning, I spent some time looking around the huge garden at Michele and John's place. There is a lot to see! Many things jump out at a non-gardener right away. But I was amazed at how much I discovered by watching small areas of the garden. There were a couple instances where I was setting up and thinking about how to take a photo and some insect landed right in my shot. By moving more slowly and watching closely, I picked up on a lot of activity around me. It was a lot of fun!
While looking at some pine trees, I noticed some movement on a shrub out of the corner of my eye. This grasshopper very kindly climbed up a branch and perched there nicely, breathing slowly, while I got in position for this shot. Click on the image to go to Flickr to see larger views.
With all the macro photos I've been taking of spiders, we've been paying more attention to the webs in the shrubs near our steps. I'm amazed at how many spiders are in the bushes. It doesn't take long for the spiders to remake the webs after a hard rain.
Last night Dianne and I went for a very quick walk around the community. On our way back home, we noticed a couple tall shrubs that were loaded with elaborate webs. We walked over to take a look and noticed a large spider working on a web. Dianne quickly spotted a praying mantis that was near the edge of the web. I can't believe she picked that out of the dried leaves on the bush! I went to get the camera and Dianne had to point out the praying mantus again when I got back. It seemed like it was stalking the spider -- moving around the shrub trying to get in a good position to nab it. When the praying mantus moved closer, the spider stopped working and stayed in a tight bundle near the center of the web. Oh the excitement!
I just got some new macro flash units for my camera. On Sunday I put together a macro photography light tent in the basement. I did a little playing with the flash units and the commander unit that controls them.
Thanks to Michele, I had a great subject to experiment with. She had sent over an exoskeleton she found in her garden that was left behind by a cicada. I took some photos from different angles. The first photo below shows the slit in the back where the cicada exited from the exoskeleton shell. Clicking on each photo will take you to larger versions in Flickr or you can go to the photo set here.
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